


Nonlinear

by Magical-Robins (DeletedBecauseShy)



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Dissociation, Gen, Time Shenanigans, derealisation, liminal spaces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:20:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27706825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeletedBecauseShy/pseuds/Magical-Robins
Summary: -=+=-It’s a well-known fact that time isn’t always linear. In some places, it is distorted and perceived differently. Some spots are known for their strange relationship with god’s ever-present timer.-Time is distorted in some places; sometimes it’s unnerving and anxiety-inducing and other times it’s exciting. Time is distorted in some places; sometimes people are there to experience it.-=+=-
Relationships: Roy Harper/Koriand'r/Jason Todd
Kudos: 15





	Nonlinear

**Author's Note:**

> Tw:  
> —  
> Dissociation  
> Derealisation

It’s a well-known fact that time isn’t always linear. In some places, it is distorted and perceived differently. Some spots are known for their strange relationship with god’s ever-present timer.  
___

Tim is walking through the empty halls when he feels it, the strange floating feeling. The walls of lockers around him are too uniform, the room itself too quiet. It’s a place that should be noisy and filled with life, a school is. 

The empty halls aren’t a school. He doesn’t know where he is, but it’s too clean. 

He’s used to being surrounded by colourful posters along the wall and people wearing all sorts of colourful clothes. He doesn’t know where he is, but, it’s too quiet. 

No, his school is filled with shouting kids. He doesn’t know where he is, but, the lighting doesn’t feel right. 

The shadows seemed stretched and squished like putty, not like the lightless spaces they should be. He doesn’t know where he is, but, the temperature doesn’t feel right. 

The hallways are always warm with too many bodies rushing between classes. Not a victim to the building’s weak AC. He doesn’t know where he is, but, it’s not his school. 

He knows it’s unreasonable, that he really is at school, that it’s only his mind playing tricks on him. But still, the world feels tilted in the wrong direction when he finally steps outside into the cool air. The chill of wind that always comes a week before Christmas in Gotham. The chill of knowing he won’t be back in school for a while, he’ll be allowed to rest without worry. 

It’s the inherent sense of wrongness that distorts time in empty schools.  
___

Airports are another strange place. Where people are dressed in pyjamas and business suits after being awake for 2, 8, 16, or 24 hours or more. None of them really knowing what time it is where they are. All of them still living in the time of their old location. 

Dick sees people with jetlag and excitement, the sadness of leaving someone and the joy of a long-awaited meeting. People who have just gotten up, people who haven’t slept yet, and people asleep where there’s room. 

He himself doesn’t know how to feel, tired or energised, excited or lonely, happy or sad. But most importantly, he doesn’t know what time it is, how long he’s been there, how long he still has to wait. 

It feels like minutes and days all at once. Like an instant and an eternity. The plane has already arrived and it’s running late. 

Its breakfast time, lunchtime, dinner time, and bedtime. He’s starving and full. 

Airports are a place filled to the brim with contradiction. A place of strange extremes and normal life. 

It’s the conflicting facts that distort time inside airports.  
___

Looking out a window shouldn’t show a world blanketed in shadow. There should be more than the sparse amount of cement illuminated by streetlights. 

When you can’t see outside, how can you know it is still there? 

Duke knows that if he stepped outside he would still be in Gotham, that he hadn’t travelled somewhere else during the short amount of time he had been on the bus. 

The people beside him are all strangers. They’re strangers with their own lives and problems, their own families waiting for them. He’ll never see these people again unless it’s on patrol. He knows that. Still, why does it feel as though they are somehow connected by fate? 

Connected by something more than coincidence. That the fact that the ten or so of them that happened to be on the same bus at the same time are related in some way. 

The fake leather is different from the expensive fabric adorning chairs around the manor. It smells like plastic. It feels too rough under his fingers. 

It isn’t as comfortable as leather should be. It’s not the same comforting feeling the chairs at the manor have. Here, there is no family around to joke with, no sibling to fight with. It’s just lonely. 

It’s the feeling of placelessness that distorts time on the bus late at night.  
___

Walking along cracked and broken asphalt at night is strangely freeing. When accompanied by a select few people, Jason might even say it’s comforting. 

The world seems empty besides from three of them. A ragtag group of misfits unwanted by everyone but each other, temporarily existing in a world that is theirs only. 

It’s addicting. 

It’s addicting and it’s impossible to plan. The veil of disassociation as fragile as a pane of glass. Breaking the second someone missteps. It’s held together by mutual trust that’s tight as glue. 

The heat radiating off of Kory is one of the only thing tethering him and Roy. Her strong presence grounding them to the universe in a way other things, animate and not, have failed to do so before. 

For Jason, the only other chain binding him is the faintest smell of oil and rust that always follows Roy. Surprisingly, it’s something he’s come to associate with home. It’s something just diluted enough to be pleasant. 

For Roy and Kory, it’s the quiet sound of strong steps on concrete. Assuring and confident with each step yet still muted and stealthy. 

They ground each other just by existing. It’s the times where it’s just them and the earth around them that it becomes clear. When they can walk along a silent and unlit road with nothing behind them and everything ahead of them. 

It’s the addictive freedom that distorts time while walking along a dark street.  
___

The car is filled with the quiet hum of an engine and rain falling on glass windows. Neither of them talks, maintaining a calming silence throughout the vehicle. In the corners of his vision, Bruce can see his youngest son slump against the side door and close his eyes, not asleep, just calm. 

Occasionally, Damian opens his eyes to look into the dark abyss outside the window. A place lit only by the occasional street lamp or headlight. Through the water-soaked glass, every bulb looks like a brilliant firework, shooting out in a bright flash towards them. 

Even with his eyes closed, he is aware of what is going on. He knows every turn and stoplight they have and will take by heart. Yet, whenever he looks at the small clock sitting between the two seats, the change would only be a handful of minutes. No matter what he did, time flowed slowly.

It felt like moving through molasses; he knew time was progressing, yet he could never see proof. 

It would be another hour or so before they finally pulled into The Cave, Damian knew that much. The trip from Blüdhaven to Gotham wasn’t long, only two or three hours at most, but it had already been late when they started their trip. So, knowing he had another hour at least, Damian allowed himself to fall into a restful sleep. 

The car is filled with the quiet hum of an engine, rain falling on glass windows, and slow breaths. 

It’s the new experiences that distort time late at night during rainy car trips.  
___

Time is distorted in some places; sometimes it’s unnerving and anxiety-inducing and other times it’s exciting. Time is distorted in some places; sometimes people are there to experience it.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my brand new Batfam side blog as well!  
> [A Worm of Robins](https://being-robin-is-magical.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Comments are more than welcome! ~<3


End file.
